[Nettime-bold] from Chiapas

[JSalloum@aol.com]

thought you'd appreciate this.
j

===
From: Velcrow Ripper <scaredsacred@dojo.tao.ca>
 Reply-to: scaredsacred@tao.ca
 Date: Sun, 18 Mar 2001 15:16:04 -0500 (EST)

 hiya folks...sorry for the bulk mailing, but
 internet can be a bit tough down
 here sometimes...it{s velcrow here, with a few
 thoughts on the journey i am
 on in mexico.  for the last two weeks i have been a
 member of the "Zapatista
 Caravan for peace, justice and dignity", travelling
 from the jungles of
 chiapas to the urban chaos of mexico city, with
 Marcos and 24 of the
 commandantes, in a bid for peace, and freedom for
 the indigenous people of
 chiapas, of mexico, and the world. And for all of
 us, as marcos says: todos
 somos indios del mundo.

 The caravan has been an incredibly moving
 experience...it{s an example of
  boldness and determination, in the face of
 impossible odds...a sense of hope
 and possibility...graffitti at UNAM (the university
 in mexico city which has
 been the cente of a radical stike, now over, for the
 last year) reads "YOU
 DONT HAVE TO ASK ANYONE TO BE FREE. The Zapatistas."

 The Zapatistas have created autonomous communities,
 called "Aguas Calientes"
 throughout chiapas, and the caravan was in one huge
 mobile autonomous zone,
 where Zapatismo was upheld above and beyond the laws
 of the state.  when we
 arrived at UNAM the students had created another
 mobile "Aguas Calientes" for
 us in the heart of the campus, a tent city, with a
 kitchen, underground radio
 station, and events every day.
   In the course of the caravan we drove for hundreds
 and hundreds of miles
 past thousands and thousands of ordinary mexicans at
 the side  of the road,
 clapping, waving, holding their hands to their
 hearts, crying, offering us
 food and drink, chanting "no estan  solos"- youre
 not alone.   The people
 were with us.  often my eyes would mist over, at one
 sacred moment after
 another, such as the sight of an old indigenous
 woman, grinning from  ear to
 ear, sunburst smile, catching my  eyes, thanking us
 for coming down, a look
 that went straight to my heart,filled with hope,
 with faith, with a belief
 that somehow in this corrupt and  selfish world, the
 audacity, the sincerity,
 the brilliance of the Zapatistas,  and this crazy
 move, riding into the
 gaping jaws of the beast, armed only  with words,
 would herald the beginning
 of a real change...
 >
 On the way we stopped at Nurio where  a national
 indigenous council was held,
 gathering support, and expanding the concrete
 demands beyond the mayans of
  chiapas, to include all the indegnous of
 mexico...not content to have their
  demands met for their own county, the vision ofthe
 zapatistas extends
  throughout this cuontry...and in fact, beyond
 borders.

  Everyday the caravan swelled as new buses joined
 in,  from a thousand in
  san cristobal to well over five thousand by the
 time we reached mexico city.

   one day we pulled into a small town,under the last
 vestiges of a blue blue
  sky.  the roads were lined with supporters. as the
 zapatistas took the stage
  the sky clouded over, and the first drops of rain
 fell.

  by the time marcos spoke, the storm was boiling,
 ligthening flahsed, and as
  rained p oured down.  the people laughed, danced,
 drank in the poetic words,
  which built in intensity as the storm itself
 peaked...

  they told us it had not rained in that town in six
 months.  in fact the name
  of the town is "place of little rain".  The
 streetst turned to rivers, and
 we  splashed through, back to the buses.

  here{s a poem I wrote that was inspired by that
 day...


   ZAPATA VIVE!

 Empty sky
 Storm forms
 Lightening flashes
 Etch images
 Of truth

 Reveal the rot
 Challenge the chains
 Woven by generation
 After generation
 After generation
 Of Men

 People Eaters
 Planet Eaters
 Conciously unconcious

 The storm is boiling
 It will not be stopped
 With a mop and a bucket

 It will not be stopped
 By all the walls of dollars
 Erected by the fearful power brokers
 And their pets
 The bent and broken governments of the world

 It will not be stopped
 By the numbed and numbered
 Sucking soothers
 Of vacant experience
 Desperate oblivion

 It will not be stopped

 It will only grow

 As you and you and you
 Choose the pain and joy
 Of concioussness

 Choose to dance in the cold driving rain
 Drenched and trembling with awe
 Swept into a hundred streams
 Coursing into a thousand rivers
 Towards the ocean of collective awakening


 The floodwaters are rising
 Swan dive in
 Laughing and shouting

 or be submerged

 The floodwaters are rising

 Its a good thing.


 Velcrow Ripper, Mexico, Mar 15/2001



 --
                                ----------------

                                www.scaredsacred.org

                                  ----------------

                       "Transformation is not in the
 future.
                             Can never be in the
 future.
                                   It is only now,
                                From moment to
 moment"
                                   -Krishnamurti
>>


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